Court arrests man suspected of killing murderer of Chechen girl

A Moscow court sanctioned the arrest of a suspect in the killing of a former Russian army colonel earlier convicted of murdering a Chechen girl, a court spokeswoman said. Magomed Suleimanov, a 41-year-old Chechen, was arrested as a suspect in the murder of ex-Colonel Yury Budanov who was killed near his home in Moscow on June 10. "The court has decided to sanction the arrest of Magomed Suleimanov until October 26, 2011," said court spokeswoman Olga Sutyapova. The former colonel himself had been sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2003 and stripped of his rank for kidnapping and killing Elza Kungayeva, 18, during the war against separatists in Chechnya in the year 2000. He was released on parole in 2009. Budanov's case was one of the most high-profile among Russian war crimes in Chechnya. The investigation said Suleimanov and his accomplices had agreed on April 2 to kill Budanov. The investigation also said the alleged murderers had been tracking Budanov for two months before the killing. They bought a car with fake license plates and a pistol with bullets to fulfill their plan, investigators said.